Scaling of Critical Nuclei Composed of Diatomic and Triatomic Molecules.

Density functional theory has been used to investigate scaling properties of critical nuclei composed of two or three Lennard-Jones sites. Varying amount of asymmetry is introduced in the attractive site-site interactions to induce orientational order at liquid-vapour interface. Systems showing little orientation obey the scaling laws of McGraw and Laaksonen (Phys. Rev. Lett., 76, 2754-2757 (1996) ). However, fluids with a layered structure at the interface show considerable deviations from the scaling laws. Keywords Homogeneous nucleation, scaling, density functional theory [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]